Leinster wont force Carbery or Byrne to make Ulster switch

Leinster say they will not force Joey Carbery or Ross Byrne into a decision to move to Ulster.

In the wake of Paddy Jackson essentially being sacked from Ulster, that province are without a first choice outhalf.

Over the weekend, the Sunday Times reported, Joe Schmidt and David Nucifora (IRFU High Performance Director) met with Leo Cullen recently and asked the Leinster Head Coach to make a decision on keeping a number ten at the RDS and letting one go up to Kingspan Stadium, the paper reported Schmidt wanted Cullen to make that decision quickly.

Both are directly contracted as employees of the IRFU, but neither Schmidt or Nucifora can force the players to move and Leinster management say it will be their decision, if it guarantees either player more game time.

What Schmidt and co can do, is to dangle ambitions of playing for Ireland in front of them.

Months back, Jordi Murphy signed for Ulster, as he was finding himself in and out of Leinster teams, he'll be joining Marty Moore, who's coming back to Ireland from Wasps.

But in the wake of everything thats happened at Ulster recently, if either player was to make that decision now, the outcome may be different.

On Monday at Leinster's weekly briefing, Forwards Coach, John Fogarty was put up to field questions about the issue.

"There is no annoyance, the way it works is that there would be regular meetings with Leo, Joe and David, to discuss the playing group for Leinster and Ireland." Fogarty said.

"The player will ultimately decide what he wants to do - We aren't in the business of holding players here.

"We'll look at the overall group, see have we got game time for that player and see how we can help them develop.

"If we see that we can't see a player moving forward, we will have the discussion with the player or the IRFU.

"I am not aware of anyone who's been backed into a corner, ultimately we want to help make the players successful here or for Ireland."